St. Paul daily globe., 1887-05-22

fashioned after them. His entreatieS
prevailed and he had his way. Down in
the meadows, along the Arno, he wan
dered, gathered great quantities of the
lovely flowers which he held so dear. Car
rying them home he made the most per-
feet ones into wreath. and then, care
fully studying them, began the delight
full task of reproducing them in stone.
Tomello, deeming such course best,
left the boy to himself until his work
was done.
Patiently, perSistently, happily, Ber-
nardino wrought, and one evening he
asked Tornello to come and see what he
had done.
Berpardino was still under 16, and it
was less than eight years since he had
first touched chiSel to stone. In all
that time he had no teacher, no hint, no
word of instruction. Neither had he
seen any work of art in all his life until
he came to Florence. In his childhood,
when he had asked why the stone was
Quarried. they told him that some of it
was made into palaces, and that some of
it, also, was hewn for artists, who, with
chiSelS, cut it into the shapes of the
things around them which they thought
lovelieSt. Some of these things which
the artists made were exchanged for
great fortunes, the quarrymen told him.
And this little was all that he knew of
art. The most beautiful shapes about
him in those bleak, comfortleSS noun
tainS were those of the vines and flow
erS, poor and mean as they were. So he
began trying to reproduce them in cast
away fragments of stone, with nothing
to direct or guide him but intuition and
eXQulSlteneSS of soul.
Knowing all this, TOrnel1O doubted if
the boy could do anything beyond crude
chiSelingS. in which there might be
some promise or lurking possibility of
future achievement. And so, when he
went to inspect BernardinO'S wreath of
lilies and found it magnificent piece
of art in which he saw nothing to criti-
else, his surprise and amaZement were
boundleSS.
Catching the boy in his arms he kissed
him warmly and rapturously.
You did by nature that which l have
always striven to do by art" cried Tor
nello. Call me master no longer. 1t
is you who are master, not /. No one
else in Italy could have done this thing
so well. You have genius, unmistakable
genius, the rareSt gift God ever gives,
and you will lead us all some day, y,unless
some woman destroys you. No, you do
not, cannot understand, but you will soon
enough. much too soon. Bend all your
thOught,all your energies, upon your art,
| tlen all be well with you. &c one step
out of your course and all your future
| is lost to yOu-a future, too, like Michael
Angeles. Such as you are always in
danger. While live L will always try
to keep you in safety; but think only Of
your art. That will ever be your Surest
safeguard"
The two worked on together for the
in hnr acc
and content. BernardinO's fame spread
until it eclipsed that of Tornello' s,whose
pride and love for his protege increased
with his days. The young artist was
petted and cOurted on every hand, but
nothing but his beloved art seemed to
have power to move him. The most
cunning and artful devices of the most
beautiful and charming women failed to
wean him from his chisels. His work
shop was more to him than the finest
salon in Italy, and in his heart there
was only love for TornellO and the art
which they were both seeking to glorify.
One night, i'll dream, woman came
| to BernardinO-a woman of the rareSt
beauty.
go, once more," she said, Ito the
bleak northern QuarrieS whence you
came here. On the highest of all the
hills is block of stone which hangs in
a cleft in the rocks. In it my body is
imprisoned. / am the queen of the
lilies, the spirit presiding over the flow
ers, which you must love. Liberate me.
Bring the block of stone here in the
City of Lilies, here in the heart of my
once imperial kingdom. Set me free
and will reward you. Whatever you
will shall be yours ~ !-iis.
Believing in his dream, he went back
nOrthward to the detested. quarries,
whence he had fled five years before:
In the dome of the highest hill was a
deep narrow cleft, which looked as if it
had been chopped into the hard stone
by a blow from some great axe. In this
| cleft, exactly as he had dreamed, hung
a block of stone. The. workmen re-
moved it for Bernardino, and he had it
sent to Florence and taken to his studio.
Not until then did he tell Tornello his
dream. The old artist smiled.
IF it has any significance at ALL" he
said, 1.-The dream means that you are to
shape this block of marble into the SEM
be so immOrtaliZed as the Queen of the
Lilies. l would not, though, if | were
you, set much store by the dream; they
are of strange fabric. Sometimes one
has good cause for thinking that they
| have value. AT other times we have
still better reasons for believing other
wise. One can never settle upon the
things of so invisible kingdom
BernardinO made the marble block in
| to half nude statue without model or
anything else to guide him but his rec
objection of the woman of his dream.
The face was spiritually fine and subtle.
but the form, though dainty in it's ex-
tremities, was voluptuously round 9TH
| erWiSe. There was something, though.